Low kill rate and a global pandemic?

The Harvard epidemiology professor Marc Lipsitch is exacting in his diction, even for an epidemiologist. “I think the likely outcome is that it will ultimately not be containable.”

With its potent mix of characteristics, this virus is unlike most that capture popular attention: It is deadly, but not too deadly. It makes people sick, but not in predictable, uniquely identifiable ways.

Lipsitch predicts that, within the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. But, he clarifies emphatically, this does not mean that all will have severe illnesses. “It’s likely that many will have mild disease, or may be asymptomatic,” he said. As with influenza, which is often life-threatening to people with chronic health conditions and of older age, most cases pass without medical care.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/

Side note: I got a package from China a week ago and got the sniffs for two days immediately. Maybe I have survived the plague?

That's not good, my wife has chronic health conditions and is just getting over a double pneumonia, she was down to 20% lung function not long ago. Now I am getting a little worried.

Total cases has passed 80k

80146 confirmed cases 2699 deaths and 27563 recovered.

That’s not at all a low death rate, that’s 10% of people who have cleared the illness.

If 40-70% of people catch it (no idea how that Harvard guy got those numbers, or why he thinks it can’t be contained) then that’s potentially a half billion deaths.

Sigh, we've been discussing this same misconception for weeks, but here it goes again.

Recovery numbers lag significantly confirmed cases and deaths for a myriad of reasons. At one point we had one death for each recovery. Yesterday, on the other hand, we had 71 deaths and 2589 recoveries in Mainland China. Or look at similar data from the other countries if you don't want to trust chinese numbers.

So chill out and give time to time.

Okay this is when I get slightly scared.
When a Harvard epidemiology professor says its not containable, and that within 1 year, 40-70% of the worlds population will have gotten it.

yea she is at high risk from this virus, so (I'm sure you already know this - just to emphasize the importance) make sure to always wash your hands when going out and coming back and avoid touching your face (especially eyes, nose and mouth) while you are out to minimize the chance to get infected and pass it on to her

I wonder why he believes that 40-70% of the world population will get it within one year. Right now it doesn't seem like this will happen. Chinese numbers don't climb that fast anymore. You have some thousand new cases per day but that was the same a week or two ago.

And I also can't believe this will happen in Northern America, Europe, Australia and so on. I guess it could spread super fast in as example many African or other very poor countries, though (if it survives the temperatures there)

We have kids (8 and 10) that go to school. If it spreads it will be inevitable :( Maybe we get lucky and it comes through during Summer holidays :/ Hopefully it can simply be contained, or only a mild form might spread.

The low rate of serious cases on the Diamond Princess gives hope, 35 serious out of 691 infected out of 3700 people can mean it's not as dangerous as it looks from the other stats, but that would also mean that there are already way more infected cases that have not been identified. When you get sick it seems to last a long time though, only 10 recovered so far, 4 dead, 642 still sick but not serious. From the Diamond princess' numbers you have a 5% chance of getting seriously ill when you catch the disease. or 2 to 3.5% chance if you take that 40 to 70% projection into account. 1 in 50 is still pretty shitty odds, still 150 million seriously ill people.

I'm keeping a watch on that worldinfo site.

The flu doesn't spread in first world countries? The primary source for flu etc to spread are schools. Getting kids has been an enormous stress on my wife's immune system from the moment they went to school. Avoid people with kids!